Dental Tribune United Kingdom Edition

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Proven against bacteria and viruses in trials. • Keeps skin dry & hydrated • Free from allergic substances • Economical and easy to apply • New unique formulation 13FeatureJanuary 24-30, 2011United Kingdom Edition 13 eureka moment while half- way across the Atlantic on a sailing holiday. Franchising was the answer. Franchising is one of the biggest industries in the UK but is often regarded as hid- den. That’s because people buy licences to operate busi- nesses under the umbrella of all sorts of well-known brands. This can range from fast food restaurants to opticians. And if it could be done in op- tometry there was no reason why it could not be done in dentistry. In fact some less courteous than myself would say that it speaks volumes about dentistry that our industry hasn’t been progressive enough to embrace new business mod- els, such as joint venture part- nerships sooner. In casting a closer eye over the clinical fence at optom- etry there’s one company that is head and shoulders above everyone else and has nearly become the byword for opticians. And just like their brilliant adverts which say ‘should’ve gone to Specsavers’, I did, figuratively speaking. Let’s face it, they were never going to throw open the doors and give us chapter and verse of how they’ve done it, but I spent a lot of time doing my homework charting their success. It was crucial to understand how they took a clinical service and created a turnkey opera- tion. It was also fascinating to see how they built a brand and made it more visible and acces- sible to the public. As hard as Pui-Ling and I tried to break down every as- pect of our business in order to create a blueprint which others could easily follow, we strug- gled. This was largely because we were too closely immersed in it ourselves. So we called in expert help from FDS North, a company which specialises in creat- ing franchises. FDS North is headed up by one of the UK’s foremost experts on fran- chising, Tony Urwin, whose credits include the devel- opment of the Clarks Shop Franchise and also being at the helm of the Walt Disney ex- pansion into the Middle East. Tony and his team crawled all over our business in order to break every aspect down into constituent parts. They created an opera- tions manual which out- lined the processes in easy chunks for anyone wanting to run an Ideal Dental Care prac- tice. A lot of the work is done for franchisees in terms of find- ing premises, fitting out sur- geries and other aspects such as the accounts, but the man- ual also identifies everything from payment facilities to cus- tomer service policies. There are also all the stringent protocols for the level and quality of dentistry the patients receive. Brand identity Hand in hand with the crea- tion of the operations manual was the development of the brand identity of Ideal Dental Care. Here again we couldn’t hope to do it on our own and called in some more ex- perts. The creatives from a top North West agency developed the identity of Ideal Dental Care, including all the vari- ous collateral, such as logos, signage, uniforms, website and advertising. And with all that done we took the proposition to market and it’s been very well received. We have launched practices such as the one in Sheffield and one we’re about to open one in Scotland. We’ve also acquired a three-story pub which we’re currently converting into our new HQ which will have state- of-the-art conferencing and training facilities. Credible and Established While we’re delighted at the progress we’ve made in a very short period of time one thing has become very obvi- ous: Franchising, although a very credible and established method of enabling people to set up and run their own busi- nesses, is still very new for dentistry. But the tide is turn- ing and, as we’ve seen from the rise in our enquiry levels, there is a growing interest in what is often referred to as the ‘third way’ to set up a dental practice. Specsavers started in 1984 and now look at optometry. I’m hoping Ideal Dental Care will be at the forefront of posi- tive and beneficial development of dentistry, which will make it easier for talented dentists to set up their own practice. Ideal Dental Care is a joint venture partnership which has a number of practices in Eng- land and is about to open its first one in Scotland. For more information visit www. idealdentalcare.co.uk. DT ‘If it could be done in optometry there was no reason why it could not be done in dentistry. In fact some would say that it speaks volumes about dentistry that our industry hasn’t embraced new business models, such as joint venture partnerships, sooner’